Real science or just a bit of froth

Last week there seemed to be a mini-media feeding frenzy about a story of a product design student who had claimed to have designed as part of her final university project a 'greenphone' which was powered by Coca-Cola.

Last week there seemed to be a mini-media feeding frenzy about a story of a product design student who had claimed to have designed as part of her final university project a 'greenphone' which was powered by Coca-Cola.

Daizi Zheng, a graduate of Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design in London, claimed the prototype could run up to four times longer than a traditional lithium ion battery and had the potential to be fully biodegradable.

The greenphone's bio battery generates electricity using enzymes to catalyse sugar in the drink. As the battery dies out, only water and oxygen are left behind.

Zheng put forward the concept to Finnish mobile phone manufacturer Nokia, who tactfully said they would not be developing the greenphone prototype further in the near future.

Zheng was reported as saying that bio batteries are being developed by large electronics companies and may be on the market in the next five years.

To be honest I am rather doubtful that we will be seeing many bio batteries in five years and if we do I doubt they will mix very well with consumers who are the move - which is pretty much the target audience for mobile phones. All that potential shaking in warm environments and who knows what will happen. It is likely to be messy but at least it should be biodegradable. In fact you only have to open a warm can of Coke after it has been shaken and hey presto.

So as a practical idea the 'greenphone' concept has a way to go to become a reality and it shows that runtime is not always the best criteria for judging a power source design.

At least Zheng knows she had dreamt up a 'media-friendly' idea which would attract marketing-focused mobile phone companies. With this in mind perhaps Nokia was not the most obvious mobile phone company to approach with a sugar powered energy source.

Perhaps the most obvious candidate would have been Orange. After all if you add copious amounts of sugar to oranges you can at least make Marmalade if not a phone call. Apple and Blackberry may have been worth a call too.

I like the concept of promoting independent radical ideas, thinking out of the proverbial box. All engineers and scientist alike should be cheerleaders to concepts such as this one.
However all great ideas need to survive peer review and market forces, if ever is going to be of any merit.
The 39 gr. of carbohydrates from the sucrose/corn-syrup have limited chemical catalysis processes at present time to generate the level of energy as compared to present battery chemistries. Yes, there is an apparent smaller carbon footprint to generate that can of soda. However, if you actually do some more in depth analysis, the author fails to be disclose what energy levels her method has able to achieve at present time, and only acknowledges that it does not generate enough energy to make a single call (typical average 3 minutes).
“Ms Zheng, who is now based in China, admitted that current bio battery's would struggle to generate enough power needed to make a call.”
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1243096/Fizzy-mobile-Nokia-phone-runs-coke.html#ixzz0xorpTQ00
Also to state the fact that the byproducts are only Water and Oxygen, since there are other ingredients besides the sugar and water in the coke formula, so that assertion is half the picture, this brief piece fails to realize that the footprint of the can, and other logistics of multiple refills.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coca-Cola
So what is the prognosis as a future energy source?
Very grim from my perspective, her concept has a very slim change to be a commercial viable product other than a chemistry experiment for high schools!